March 11, 2012

As with South Africa back in the bad old days, Israel's main mechanism for segregation within the pre-67 borders is the ID card. Catch this throwaway line in a Guardian piece by Harriet Sherwood titled Israelis: Portrait of a people in tense times:

Despite his Israeli citizenship, Youssef does not consider himself as Israeli, but a Palestinian who lives in Israel. He shows his Israeli identity card. Until 2005, it used to categorise him as an "Arab", but after many court battles ID cards now show a row of asterisks for all Israeli citizens. However, Jews are identified as such by their date of birth, shown according to the Hebrew as well as Gregorian calendar.